Opinion of the Court. prosecuting for felonies by information instead of by indictment, if they chose to abolish the grand jury system. And the words 'due process of law' in the amendment do not mean and have not the effect to limit the powers of State governments to prosecutions for crime by indictment; but these words do mean law in its regular course of administration, according to prescribed forms, and in accordance with the general rules for the protection of individual rights. Administration and remedial proceedings must change, from time to time, with the advancement of legal science and the progress of society; and, if the people of the State find it wise and expedient to abolish the grand jury and prosecute all crimes by information, there is nothing in our State Constitution and nothing in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States which prevents them from doing so." On the other hand, it is maintained on behalf of the plaintiff in error that the phrase "due process of law" is equivalent to "law of the land," as found in the 29th chapter of Magna Charta; that by immemorial usage it has acquired a fixed, definite, and technical meaning; that it refers to and includes, not only the general principles of public liberty and private right, which lie at the foundation of all free government, but the very institutions which, venerable by time and custom, have been tried by experience and found fit and necessary for the preservation of those principles, and which, having been the birthright and inheritance of every English subject, crossed the Atlantic with the colonists and were transplanted and established in the fundamental laws of the State; that, having been originally introduced into the Constitution of the United States as a limitation upon the powers of the government, brought into being by that instrument, it has now been added as an additional security to the individual against oppression by the States themselves; that one of these institutions is that of the grand jury, an indictment or presentment by which against the accused in cases of alleged felonies is an essential part of due process of law, in order that he may not be harassed or destroyed by prosecutions founded only upon private malice or popular fury. This view is certainly supported by the authority of the Opinion of the Court. great name of Chief Justice Shaw and of the court in which he presided, which, in Jones v. Robbins, 8 Gray, 329, decided that the 12th article of the Bill of Rights of Massachusetts, a transcript of Magna Charta in this respect, made an indictment or presentment of a grand jury essential to the validity of a conviction in cases of prosecutions for felonies. In delivering the opinion of the court in that case, Merrick, J., alone dissenting, the Chief Justice said: "The right of individual citizens to be secure from an open and public accusation of crime, and from the trouble, expense, and anxiety of a public trial before a probable cause is established by the presentment and indictment of a grand jury, in case of high offences, is justly regarded as one of the securities to the innocent against hasty, malicious, and oppressive public prosecutions, and as one of the ancient immunities and privileges of English liberty." "It having been stated," he continued, "by Lord Coke, that by the law of the land' was intended a due course of proceeding according to the established rules and practice of the courts of common law, it may, perhaps, be suggested that this might include other modes of proceeding sanctioned by the common law, the most familiar of which are, by informations of various kinds, by the officers of the crown in the name of the King. But, in reply to this, it may be said that Lord Coke himself explains his own meaning by saying the law of the land,' as expressed in Magna Charta, was intended due process of law, that is, by indictment or presentment of good and lawful men. And further, it is stated, on the authority of Blackstone, that informations of every kind are confined by the constitutional law to misdemeanors only. 4 Bl. Com. 310." Referring again to the passage from Lord Coke, he says, p. 343: "This may not be conclusive, but, being a construction adopted by a writer of high authority before the emigration of our ancestors, it has a tendency to show how it was then understood." This passage from Coke seems to be the chief foundation of the opinion for which it is cited; but a critical examination and Opinion of the Court. comparison of the text and context will show that it has been misunderstood; that it was not intended to assert that an indictment or presentment of a grand jury was essential to the idea of due process of law in the prosecution and punishment of crimes, but was only mentioned as an example and illustration of due process of law as it actually existed in cases in which it was customarily used. In beginning his commentary on this chapter of Magna Charta, 2 Inst. 46, Coke says: "This chapter containeth nine several oranches : "1. That no man be taken or imprisoned but per legem terræ, that is, by the common law, statute law, or custom of England; for the words per legem terræ, being towards the end of this chapter, doe referre to all the precedent matters in the chapter, etc. "2. No man shall be disseised, etc., unless it be by the lawful judgment, that is, verdict of his equals, (that is of men of his own condition,) or by the law of the land, (that is to speak it once for all,) by the due course and process of law." He then proceeds to state that, 3, no man shall be outlawed, unless according to the law of the land; 4, no man shall be exiled, unless according to the law of the land; 5, no man shall be in any sort destroyed, "unlesse it be by the verdict of his equals, or according to the law of the land;" 6, "no man shall be condemned at the King's suite, either before the King in his bench, where the pleas are coram rege, (and so are the words. nec super eum ibimus to be understood,) nor before any other commissioner or judge whatsoever, and so are the words nec super eum mittemus to be understood, but by the judgment of his peers, that is, equals, or according to the law of the land." Recurring to the first clause of the chapter, he continues : "1. No man shall be taken (that is) restrained of liberty by petition or suggestion to the King or to his councill, unless it be by indictment or presentment of good and lawfull men, where such deeds be done. This branch and divers other parts of this act have been notably explained by divers acts of Parliament, &c., quoted in the margent." The reference is to various acts during the reign of Edward Opinion of the Court. III. And reaching again the words " nisi per legem terræ,” he continues: "But by the law of the land. For the true sense and exposition of these words see the statute of 37 E. 3, cap. 8, where the words, by the law of the land, are rendered, without due proces of the law, for there it is said, though it be contained in the Great Charter, that no man be taken, imprisoned, or put out of his freehold without proces of the law, that is, by indictment of good and lawfull men, where such deeds be done in due manner, or by writ originall of the common law. Without being brought in to answere but by due proces of the common law. No man be put to answer without presentment before justices, or thing of record, or by due proces, or by writ originall, according to the old law of the land. Wherein it is to be observed that this chapter is but declaratory of the old law of England." It is quite apparent from these extracts that the interpreta tion usually put upon Lord Coke's statement is too large, because if an indictment or presentment by a grand jury is essential to due process of law in all cases of imprisonment for crime, it applies not only to felonies but to misdemeanors and petty offences, and the conclusion would be inevitable that informations as a substitute for indictments would be illegal in all cases. It was indeed so argued by Sir Francis Winninton in Mr. Prynn's Case, 5 Mod. 459, from this very language of Magna Charta, that all suits of the King must be by presentment or indictment, and he cited Lord Coke as authority to that effect. He attempted to show that informations had their origin in the act of 11 Hen. 7, c. 3, enacted in 1494, known as the infamous Empson and Dudley act, which was repealed by that of 1 Hen. 8, c. 6, in 1509. But the argument was overruled, Lord Holt saying that to hold otherwise "would be a reflection on the whole bar." Sir Bartholomew Shower, who was prevented from arguing in support of the information, prints his intended argument in his report of the case under the name of The King v. Berchet, 1 Show. 106, in which, with great thoroughness, he arrays all the learning of the time on the subject. He undertakes to "evince that this method of prosecution is noways con Opinion of the Court. trariant to any fundamental rule of law, but agreeable to it." He answers the objection that it is inconvenient and vexatious to the subject by saying (p. 117): "Here is no inconvenience to the people. Here is a trial per pais, fair notice, liberty of pleading dilatories as well as bars. Here is subpoena and attachment, as much time for defence, charge, &c., for the prosecutor makes up the record, &c.; then, in case of malicious prosecution, the person who prosecutes is known by the note to the coroner, according to the practice of the court." He answers the argument drawn from Magna Charta, and says: "That this method of prosecution no way contradicts that law, for we say this is per legem terræ et per communem legem terræ, for otherwise there never had been so universal a practice of it in all ages." And referring to Coke's comment, that "no man shall be taken," i. e., restrained of liberty by petition or suggestion to the King or his Council unless it be by indictment or presentment, he says (p. 122): "By petition or suggestion can never be meant of the King's Bench, for he himself had preferred several here; that is meant only of the the King alone, or in Council, or in the Star Chamber. In the King's Bench the information is not a suggestion to the King, but to the court upon record." And he quotes 3 Inst. 136, where Coke modifies the statement by saying, "The King cannot put any to answer, but his court must be apprized of the crime by indictment, presentment, or other matter of record," which, Shower says, includes an information. So it has been recently held that upon a coroner's inquisition taken concerning the death of a man and a verdict of guilty of murder or manslaughter is returned, the offender may be prosecuted and tried without the intervention of a grand jury. Reg. v. Ingham, 5 B. & S. 257. And it was said by Buller, J., in |